Canvas
by Miko-chan
Summary: His visitor does not know that he draws her every night she comes. [SasuSaku. Oneshot. Angst. AU.]


The horizon, blanched in murky ink, drowned the studded stars that usually splotched the enigmatic darkness. The lone creamy orb rays cast its weak fingers over the fiery mandarin canopy. Groups of velvet wisp floated in the sky, curling delicately on each passing breeze.

It was like any cold October night, where he cherished the pleasantly fresh wind that caressed raven locks against his temples. His slender frame sat on the wide balcony ledge, posture totally languid and composed. A thick-ridged paper, stained with ashes and hues, was propped on his knees while a coarse charcoal was held in between his fingers.

His dusk-colored eyes swirled with restrained impatience as he waited, sweeping his fingers over the incomplete image. The woolen navy sweater he wore hardly kept the settling chill to crawl underneath his faded blue breeches. This might aggravate his already drowsy condition, yet he could not succumb again to slumber until she appeared once more.

Soon enough, his attenuated senses caught a glimpse of white. The woman, who wore almost threadbare muslin in bitter autumn, walked silently. Her elongated pale legs brushed against the slim green blades, alerting the idle cicadas to reverberate their voices in the night.

The overwhelming gap between them as strangers did not hinder him to look after her nightly strolls in his distant corner. He deeply wished to know why she basked underneath the moonlight of his lawn every evening yet he did not mind her illicit trespassing. As long as she did not deprived him of staring at her lithe profile and the rhythmic sway of her rose coral tresses, he would not even bother to disturb his flittering nightingale into flight.

His unstained digits produced unrefined strokes of planes and lines that hardly connect into something comprehensible. It was futile to incorporate the expanse of emotions to the replica of his eccentric muse. For so long he wanted to end these growth incomplete sketches of ethereal landscapes and portraits of an enthralling nymph without a face.

His concentration was too enamored with his fragmentary creation that he did not become aware of the abrupt absence of cacophonous sounds. The wind slightly bristled, wafting the obstructing indigo clouds away from his feeble source of light. The pale radiance began to scatter throughout his whole residence, wrapping them in soft pastel of fair glow.

His ears almost did not catch her shivering gasp, as the wintry air brushed her naked arms, calling his attention towards the fascinating creature standing in the mossy grounds. In a murmuring heartbeat, something that never took place before happened.

"You really love to draw, huh?" She stood there, her small back to him. Fragile bony fingers threaded together anxiously in front of his gaze, uncertain if he would answer.

The silence drenched the whole woods. He halted his occupied hands for a second, thinking for a swift response to the question. He knew that he must reply urgently, for the indefinite trepidation that pounded inside his chest would collapse if she turned away. "No."

"Are you finished?" The exasperated sigh was too loud in this unwelcome silence.

Smoldering coal stare burned in his work, disclosing the same images when he tries to preserve her image in an ash that never stained his fingers and colors that do not blend. An empty depiction of a faceless woman in frail moonlight and withering leaves. "I will not sleep until I finis-"

His onyx orbs widened at the vision of a perfect imitation of loneliness.

She turned a graceful heel, revealing a pair of molten emerald irises swelling in crystalline drops. Despite his considerable distance, he could clearly grasp the clarity of her earnest look, as if they were familiar to the very hazy recesses of his subconscious.

"I used to ask you that question before you sleep." Fleeting words trembled, as if they would flow in outburst if released too swiftly. Her fingers, which he thought of them as clear and smooth, were calloused and smothered in cinders as she grasped them against her shivering shoulders. "But you never, ever sleep."

He opened his mouth to retort that everything she said was nothing of his concern. However senseless the words were to him, the unusual ache in his chest was intensifying. It was slowly building into a burdening pain, pleading him to close his eyes.

"But, I am happy." Her aching desolation reflected in her as she valiantly lifted her lips into an empty smile, even as tears streaked down her pale cheeks. It dawned on him as he sealed his eyes and dropped the unfinished image of her tears when she gazed longingly to something farther than any measurable distance between them. Her jaded stare did not meet his own, as if he did not exist. "You can finally rest."

**Written:** July 22, 2006

**Revised:** October 28, 2007


End file.
